By Bulus Silas Bossan
Maimuna couldn’t figure out how to get a cosmetics business off the ground, so she remained unemployed after university. She lives with her family in Bauchi, a town in the northeast part of Nigeria not far from the reaches of the Boko Haram terrorist group. Like many young people in Nigeria, she thought she would need a large sum of money to start a business. She couldn’t see a way out of the cycle of poverty… until she bumped into the Navigators.
Funmilayo is another university student who carries responsibility to help provide for her younger siblings. She is interested in fashion design and runs a tailoring business, but until recently she had to rent or borrow sewing machines to do her work. She planned to sustain herself by moving away to a bigger city.
When Maimuna and Funmilayo ran across a training program run by the Navigators, their stories were changed. The Nigeria Navigators run an NGO called Full Life Empowerment Program (FLEP), based on John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Originally, the Nigeria Navigators focused on sharing the Gospel with university students. As the ministry expanded, they soon realized there were significant obstacles to the spread of the Gospel in Nigeria. How could they reach people of different religious backgrounds? What about poor people and those in rural areas? Enter FLEP, which is designed to give them access to harder-to-reach groups of people by meeting their felt needs.
“If I see someone on the street and I want to share the Gospel with him, there might be major obstacles to that,” says Jonathan Hussaini, CEO of FLEP. “He might be hungry, homeless, or destitute. There is a spiritual angle, and then there is a physical angle: people need jobs and food. We want to start by meeting their physical needs.”
The Navigators set up FLEP as a way to offer practical training in employability, including lifeskills training, entrepreneurship, and mentorship. FLEP recently completed a training program for 70 young people from rural areas in northeast and southwest Nigeria. According to Jonathan, “The main heart of the training was to teach people how they can start small and start a business as a way of fighting unemployment.” Current training focuses on building businesses to offer practical services like tailoring, shoemaking, and cosmetology.
FLEP also provides small grants and loans to help trainees purchase necessary equipment for their businesses. For example, the NGO helped Maimuna buy equipment to manufacture a hair cream product on a larger scale. She began marketing her product on social media and in her own relational circles. She said, “When I learnt I didn’t need to have big money to start my business, I started my cosmetics business immediately! I have been able to make over N100,000 ($200) and buy a fabricated hot oil mixer over the last six months with support from FLEP.”
After participating in FLEP training, Funmilayo has been able to purchase an industrial sewing machine and rent space for a tailoring shop. She is now able to help pay university tuition for her younger siblings. Now instead of relocating to a bigger city, she plans to stay in her own town and provide employment for other people there.
The employment generated by FLEP projects is not the only way the Lord has used this NGO to multiply The Navigators’ influence in Nigeria. As an added bonus to the program, its structure is designed for discipleship. In each location where FLEP holds training, The Navigators recruits local business owners as mentors to follow up with participants as they gradually develop their businesses. In this way, The Navigators has built relationships with scores of people in otherwise hard to reach areas.
At this point in time, the FLEP network is mainly made up of nonbelievers. It has given The Navigators a great deal of access to people in rural communities and the ethnicities they represent. Each FLEP training includes a time for getting into the Scriptures. Trainees from different religious backgrounds develop relationships across the religious divide and even pray together. One business mentor has also been able to visit a trainee's home and read the Bible with her.
The Navigators in Nigeria have been taking their own advice to young business owners: be willing to start small. They are meeting people’s physical needs to the tune of one sewing machine at a time, and they are trusting God to develop this strong network of relationships into an avenue for major discipleship.
